Richard Posner, a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has long been considering a leading conservative legal thinker. However, in an interview with NPR yesterday, Posner said
“There’s been a real deterioration in conservative thinking. And that has to lead people to re-examine and modify their thinking.”I’ve become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy.”
Although Posner has never been considered a party-line conservative, he was a Reagan nominee considered ideologically solid enough to be a possible Supreme Court candidate in the Bush administration—-albeit not enough to actually be nominated. Posner also has a huge amount of influence on American legal thought as one of the most widely cited judges and legal scholars in the country. It’s not that Posner’s comments will sway votes, after all he’s not exactly a celebrity. But the people paying attention to him will shape the direction of the law for decades to come. And if a leading conservative thinker has lost respect for the GOP, that’s worth noticing.
